Effective Communication in Management: Persuasion and Negotiation Skills

Effective communication is crucial in an organization for achieving organizational goals. This article discusses the importance of communication in management and how persuasion and negotiation skills can help in achieving organizational goals. It also covers the different types of negotiations and strategies for successful negotiations.

Management Communication

Effective communication is a very important part in an organization as there are human resources who
work for the fulfillment of organizational goals. They need to communicate to discuss things and make
everything better. Communication helps in exchange of thoughts and feelings with each other. It is
necessary for an employee to make relations with the manager and it can only be done by a healthy
communication. Lack of effective communication is the major problem in organizations. Effective
communication helps in providing motivation to the employees that leads in improving the morale and
Interpersonal communications helps in an effective way when it comes to persuasion and negotiation.
These things can be done by effective communication. Persuasion skills play a very important role in our
daily lives. There are different settings, where it is necessary to have good persuasion skills. Such
situations are usually occurring in a business organization (Мукманова and Mukmanova, 2016).
1. Focus on the other party’s need- Persuasion skills suggests listening carefully the needs of the
other party and then understanding what their expectations are. It shows the respect and
loyalty you provide to them. It helps in clearly defining the advantages of the proposal you give.
2. Logical argument- It means that it is important to do a proper research and then approach the
client with the benefits you are giving to them.
3. Use positive words- It is important to use positive language instead of negative language as
words plays an important role in creating the impact on a person. The meaning that needs to be
conveyed must be the same (Graham, 2009).
4. Subtly give compliments to other party- It helps in making the third party happy if you subtly
compliment them.
5. Monitoring of manners- It is important to be natural as mirroring someone else’s actions is not
at all a good idea. This also creates a very negative impact on the third party.
6. Remembering of names- in business, it is very important to remember the names of the clients
as it shows that you are treating them well.
These skills are necessary to understand the needs of third party. By listening actively to them about
their needs and wants, they really start thinking that we are interested in them. Negotiation helps in
persuading the other party to do the things, you want them to do. In negotiation it is not important that
every time there is a win- lose situation. Negotiation can be done when both the parties are agreeing

upon the same decision (Bick, 2010). Managers should understand such negotiation skills to satisfy the
employees by negotiating with them in certain circumstances. There are different types of negotiations-
 Negotiating to win- It basically refers to consider the own interest and set aside the interest of
the others. In this negotiation, everything has not been disclosed and pressurizes a person to do
something. This is a win- lose situation.
 Negotiating jointly- This is a win- win situation, when the decision has been taken according to
the interest of both the parties. This is a mutually satisfactory agreement. It can be only done
when there is a mutual trust between the parties. In this negotiation both parties compromises
for the benefits of each other. They try to consider the perspective of each other to understand
things in a better way.
There are some important aspects that are necessary to be considered while negotiating. Negotiation
must be done in a proper format and both parties should be clear in their mind about their needs and
interests. There are some strategies of successful negotiations-
1. Listening carefully what people are saying and analyze the reasons for the same.
2. Clarify all the issues by doing a proper inquiry about them.
3. Try to find out if there any outside force is supporting the concern (Pemberton and Shurville,
2000).
4. Find out common things (Graham, 2009).
5. Use suitable persuasion skills by using verbal as well as nonverbal communication.
6. Understand the effects of the word “no” as it has a big power.
7. It is important to keep calm and don’t be aggressive.
8. It is necessary to know the situation when to compromise.
9. It helps when there is a clear understanding of interests and needs.
10. It is important to have a deadline of the discussion.
There are six stages of negotiation that elaborates the same in a detailed manner-
1. Preparation- It is important to do proper preparation when you are going for a negotiation. All
the facts should be known related to the situation that can clarify the things in a better way.
(Workplace-communication.com, 2018). There are some policies of organization that can be
used while preparing for negotiation. By preparing in advance helps in reducing the chances of
conflict and wastage of time.

2. Discussion- In this step, both the parties set aside their concerns and tries to understand the
actual situation. This stage basically involved three activities questioning, listening and clarifying.
It is important to ask question to clarify the scenario in a proper way that removes all the
confusions. It is helpful to create important notes out of the discussion as it h can provide
assistance in further discussion. It is necessary to listen the whole discussion actively because
when disagreement happens then there are more chances of making mistake of saying a lot and
listening less (Tay, Ang and Hegney, 2012). It is important to provide a chance to speak for both
the parties.
3. Clarifying goals- After the discussion, it is necessary to clarify certain things like interests, goals
and point of view of both the sides. It helps in prioritizing the things on a list and then negotiates
upon the same. It is not necessary that both the parties can found a common ground so
negotiation can be done by keeping the ultimate goal in mind. Clarification plays an important
role as it helps in reaching the outcome without creating any misunderstandings that can result
in major problems.
4. Negotiate towards a win-win outcome- This stage basically focuses in finding out a solution that
provides equal benefits to both the parties. It considers the needs and interest of both parties. A
win- win situation is the best thing that can happen to a negotiation. It is not necessary to get
win- win outcome from every negotiation but it should be the main objective. In this stage,
different suggestions and compromises have been discussed. Compromises in such conditions
are considered as positive aspects that can provide the maximum benefit
(BusinessDictionary.com, 2018).
5. Agreement- Agreement stage comes when both the parties ends up discussion over the
interests and viewpoint of each other. In negotiation, the parties involved must have an open
mind so that they can easily accept the final solution. Agreements need to be clear to convey
both the parties that what are the final decisions.

6. Implementing course of action- After an agreement, an implementation has been done related
to the course of action that can carries through the whole process (Vangelisti, 2016).
Sometimes, Negotiation breaks down in between and both the parties and they do not reach to a
suitable solution. Afterwards, a further meeting needs to be schedule to try again. In further meeting,
new ideas and interest has been taken into account and then try to find out a better solution by
refreshing the whole negotiation process. In this case, a mediator is involved to get a solution. There are
some cases when negotiation has been done in an informal way. In such situation, people start using
appropriate words and go out of the boundaries. So, it is essential to communicate a proper way and
maintain the decorum of the organization (Anon, 2018). There are three main factors that affect the
process of negotiation-
 Attitudes- A negotiation can get completely influenced by the attitude of the parties. A win-win
situation can only be achieved when both the parties keep their ego and attitude aside.
 Knowledge- It is necessary to do homework in the negotiation process because more knowledge
a person has more questions he can ask. A person having sufficient knowledge can able to
participate actively in the negotiation.
 Interpersonal skills- Interpersonal skills are necessary for having negotiations as it helps in
creating an impact over the discussion (Vangelisti, 2016)..
Manager has responsibility to maintain a proper decorum in the organization to ensure the proper flow
of communication. There is formal as well as informal communication. There should be a separate place
for the same and they cannot be used in an inappropriate way. A manager is responsible to ensure that
the persuasion and negotiation is not providing any harm to the working of the organizational it can
directly impact the goals and objectives of the same. A manager needs to support employees in learning
different negotiation skills to handle the clients in an effective way (Möhrle, 2015). A manager is a
person who can handle a team of people by communicating the best ways to work and listen them in a
proper way, whenever they face any issue (2011-2018, 2018).
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